This acclaimed clinical guide and widely adopted text has filled a key need in the field since its original publication. Nancy McWilliams makes psychoanalytic personality theory and its implications for practice accessible to practitioners of all levels of experience. She explains major character types and demonstrates specific ways that understanding the patient's individual personality structure can influence the therapist's focus and style of intervention. Guidelines are provided for developing a systematic yet flexible diagnostic formulation and using it to inform treatment. Highly readable, the book features a wealth of illustrative clinical examples.
New to This Edition
- Reflects the ongoing development of the author's approach over nearly two decades.
- Incorporates important advances in attachment theory, neuroscience, and the study of trauma.
- Material on the contemporary relational movement in psychoanalysis.
- A number of the case examples are entirely new.
Contents
- Introduction
I. Conceptual Issues
- 1. Why Diagnose?
- 2. Psychoanalytic Character Diagnosis
- 3. Developmental Levels of Personality Organization
- 4. Implications of Developmental Levels of Organization
- 5. Primary Defensive Processes
- 6. Secondary Defensive Processes
II. Types of Character Organization
- 7. Psychopathic (Antisocial) Personalities
- 8. Narcissistic Personalities
- 9. Schizoid Personalities
- 10. Paranoid Personalities
- 11. Depressive and Manic Personalities
- 12. Masochistic (Self-Defeating) Personalities
- 13. Obsessive and Compulsive Personalities
- 14. Hysterical (Histrionic) Personalities
- 15. Dissociative Psychologies
Appendix. Suggested Diagnostic Interview Format
Audience
Clinicians and graduate students in all of the mental health disciplines, including clinical psychology, social work, psychiatry, and counseling.
About the Author
Nancy McWilliams, PhD, teaches in the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and has a private practice in Flemington, New Jersey. She is a former president of the Division of Psychoanalysis (39) of the American Psychological Association and is on the editorial board of Psychoanalytic Psychology. Dr. McWilliams's books have been translated into 14 languages, and she has lectured widely both nationally and internationally. She is a recipient of honors including the Rosalee Weiss Award for contributions to practice from the Division of Independent Practitioners of the American Psychological Association; Honorary Membership in the American Psychoanalytic Association; and the Robert S. Wallerstein Visiting Scholar Lectureship in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis at the University of California, San Francisco. A graduate of the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis, Dr. McWilliams is also affiliated with the Center for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy of New Jersey and the National Training Program of the National Institute for the Psychotherapies in New York City.
Book Reviews
"In revising Psychoanalytic Diagnosis, McWilliams has surpassed herself. The original—deservedly regarded as a classic—was an integrative tour de force; the second edition is even better. Informed by current advances in neuroscience and infant research, and reshaped in light of the 'relational turn' in contemporary psychoanalysis, this book distills a vast literature on development, psychopathology, and therapy into an extraordinarily useful map of the clinical terrain. It is at once an indispensable resource for beginning therapists, a valuable teaching tool, and a comprehensive reference for seasoned clinicians."
-- David J. Wallin, PhD, private practice, Mill Valley and Albany, California
"This is a book for all clinicians who aspire to understand their clients deeply and help them live more richly and authentically. McWilliams synthesizes a century of cumulative clinical wisdom and offers it in a form that is accessible and useful to clinicians of any theoretical persuasion. The first edition of Psychoanalytic Diagnosis was an instant classic; the second edition is exceptionally lucid and masterful. This is McWilliams, master clinician and teacher, at her very best."
-- Jonathan Shedler, PhD, Department of Psychiatry, University of Colorado School of Medicine
"In this accessible and impassioned book, McWilliams provides organizing principles to help us understand psychopathology without oversimplifying or evading the difficult questions raised by diagnosis. Reading McWilliams's book will make you feel like you know her. Her extraordinary humanity, wisdom, deep sense of ethics, and steady concern for her patients are evident throughout. The second edition includes an updated presentation of attachment theory, addresses the contributions of relational theory and neuroscience research, and integrates a contemporary understanding of somatization and defense. A 'must read' for every clinician in training."
-- Joyce A. Slochower, PhD, Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, New York University
Product Details
- Hardcover: 426 pages
- Publisher: The Guilford Press; Second edition (2011)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1609184947
- ISBN-13: 978-1609184940
- Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.4 inches
List Price: $60.00